


the quintessence of dust.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, M/M, Vessels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-17 00:51:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2290931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She closes her eyes against the light, but she still sees it for hours, burned into her retinas, the outline of wings in the corners of her vision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the quintessence of dust.

She’s on the road the night the stars fall, running down the highway in her beat-up Nisson. She slams on the breaks when the angel collides in the earth by the side of the road.

She closes her eyes against the light, but she still sees it for hours, burned into her retinas, the outline of wings in the corners of her vision.

_Help me._

No, Claire says.  She touches the rosary around her neck. She thinks, I will walk through the valley of darkness, I will fear no evil.

—

Hael finds her again.  She bursts across Claire’s vision like a sunburst, she is fire and flame and ash, she is burning, but when she reached out to Claire again, her hand is cold to the touch.

—

The vessel’s hair is thick and dark and straight.  Claire allows the strands to slip through her fingers.  She winds another strand around her hand and holds it tight.  Claire brings her hands to Hael’s head, runs them down her crown.  

Hael shivers under her hands.  Her shirt peels away from her neck.  Claire slowly combs her fingers through the rough strands, through the dark hairs with the lighter brown highlights.  Claire lets the hair fall out of her fingers.

“What are you doing?” Hael asks quietly.

“Shhh,” she says, singsong.  “I’m braiding your hair. Shut up.”

She touches the braid carefully, feels the plait and then touches the curl of hair hanging loose at the tip.  Hael looks at her reflection in the mirror.  She meets Claire’s eyes. “It’s me,” she says. “I like it.”

“I think it’s very you,” Claire tells her, and wraps her arms around Hael’s shoulders, puts her chin there too.

“I never had a friend before,” Hael says, oh so serious, and Claire says, “Me either.  Not like this.”

—

One morning she touches Hael’s cheek, and she is hot to the touch, like the belly of a tea kettle.

“You have a fever,” she says. Hael says nothing, only looks at her with glass-bright eyes.

—

Claire tells her how empty she feels, ever since the angel left her hollowed out and raw, and Hael presses her lips against her cheek, then her throat, then her mouth.

—

One night they sit on the side of the road and watch the stars for a while.

“That’s supposed to be a bear,” Claire explains. A bear, a dipper, a scorpion, a hunter: Hael listens with polite disdain.

“That’s stupid,” she says.

“Yeah,” Claire says.  She can feel every breath Hael takes.  She can feel the heat of her skin, burning against her shoulder, her arm, her thigh.   Claire touches her cheek. The skin is starting to blister there too.  Matching the blisters on her neck, on her fingers.  

“You could save her,” she says.

“Who will save me?” Hael looks at her with quicksilver in her eyes, with something wet on her cheeks.  Angels don’t cry, she has said before. Claire knows better, now.  Sometimes she wants to kiss the stardust out of Hael, sometimes she wants to steal her breath and hold her here, and sometimes Claire understands she can’t believe a word Hael says.  They have different religions.  

“You want me to go,” Hael says. accusing.

“Yes,” Claire says, and touches her hand.  “It’s not right. It’s not fair.  Would you do it to me?”

Hael looks away.  “But I didn’t.”

“Tell me about her.”  

“Her name is Lee.  Her parents are musicians.  She is diabetic.” Hael speaks quietly.  “She misses her mother.  She wants to go home.”

Something curls in her gut.  “You should let her.” she says, low and angry.

“But then,” Hael says, “then I won’t have anything to hold me.”

Later that night, Claire presses her face in Hael’s neck and whispers, “Couldn’t we make you one of your own?”

—

Hael takes her hand, and Claire knows her so well: she knows it isn’t out of love, this time.  It’s fear, primal and raw, the humanity Hael tries to keep from touching her.  She closes her eyes and makes a promise: Do not be afraid, I will keep you.  You will not want…

“It’s not fair,” Hael says. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Claire tells her, oh baby, I always will.

Hael looks at her with those sad, ancient eyes.  “You’d take care of me? You’d still love me?”

“I’ll take care of you,” Claire promises.  Cross her heart and swear to die, she promises, promises.

“And you’ll remember me.”

“Of course. You’re my best friend.”

Hael touches her cheek, and falls.  

—

Claire drives Lee home.  Lee curls up in the passenger seat and Hael never did, she always sat soldier straight, never let her shoulders touch the back of the seat. 

Lee says, “I feel empty.”

Claire says, “You always will.”

—

Claire is a moon.  She is no longer empty.  Hael, she says, and touches her belly.


End file.
